Elkin Brothers Christmas The Complete Series - Leslie North Page 0,102

the airport and presumably flown back to Nevada. Gabe hadn’t sent her a message yet. His phone felt almost radioactive in his pocket. Soon it would swallow him whole, and then where would he be?

“I just don’t get how you could have done something so crazy,” Jonas said. He leaned back on the sofa across from Gabe and stared at him with a searching glare. “Getting a woman to pose as your fiancée is worse than abandoning us in favor of living in Las Vegas.”

Gabe let out a bitter laugh. “Nothing I do has been the right decision for the family.” Anna’s voice whispered in his ear again, talking him down and reminding him that this was the Elkin way of expressing affection. “I love all of you, and I’m lucky to have been raised here, but it’s been difficult.” Some of the anger went out of him at the uncomfortable movement Chase made as he glanced at Tana. Jonas looked at the floor. His grandmother patted her hands on the arms of her chair.

“I think it’s time for me and Gabe to talk privately for a few minutes,” she said, her tone brooking no opposition.

“I agree,” Jonas said, quickly rising to his feet. He kissed their grandmother on the cheek, and then he was gone, heading for the door at top speed.

Chase took more time as he and Tana each bent to embrace their grandmother and then left the room together.

A pang of envy shot through Gabe. It would be better if Anna were here to hold his hand, but it hadn’t panned out that way. Alone with his grandmother, he was wildly uncomfortable. His skin felt raw, and so did his heart. It had been displayed for his family without a single thing to hide behind, and it wasn’t a sensation Gabe ever wanted to get used to.

His grandmother gazed directly at him. “I’m sorry, Gabe.”

“What?” He’d expected her to have lots to say on the subject, but not that. “I should be the one apologizing for what I did to you.” Another wave of emotion crashed into him, shameful and awful. “I lied to all of you.”

She held up a hand. “I know I was hard on you when you were growing up. On your brothers, too.” She put her fingertips to her lips, her eyes momentarily glazed over as if deep in thought. “I wanted to do right by you, and at the time, that meant making sure you were the best you could possibly be. Obviously, that backfired.”

“It didn’t.” Gabe didn’t want her to think she’d done a lousy job of parenting them—far from it. “It didn’t backfire, Grandmother. You set us all up to be highly successful. And I am.”

“That may be true, but it also resulted in one of my grandsons moving far away.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she continued. “I don’t judge you for it, Gabe. It’s only natural to want to get out in the world and make your own life. I should have been more accepting of your choices years ago, before they had so much time to wound you like this.”

I’m not wounded, he tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come out. “It’s not that I didn’t want to be here,” he said gruffly. “I did. But I also needed a place to call my own.”

“And you made a wonderful one.” His grandmother’s eyes misted over. “It’s me who wanted something different. I wanted you home for the holidays—all of you—because when you’re here, I feel like I’m keeping you safe. You and your brothers are everything to me. Sometimes, an old woman lets her feelings get the better of her.”

“Nobody can possibly blame you for that.” Gabe reached over and took her hand. “After the way we lost my parents, it’s perfectly understandable.”

Grandmother shook her head. “What’s not understandable is how blind I was to your unhappiness. I did this to you. I’m at least partially responsible because I didn’t understand the real you. And all those years and all those girlfriends, I thought they didn’t understand you, either. That’s why I disapproved of them. Not because I thought they weren’t good enough for you—any of them could have been your wife. But I didn’t get the sense they loved you for who you really were. But all along, I didn’t understand either.”

“What about Anna?”

She let out a short laugh. “I like Anna. She made you happy, and you’ve been so desperately unhappy since